I tell ya, all the sudden life was BUSY BUSY BUSY and my time to blog was non-existant! So, here I am trying to make up for it....and apologizing for my lackadaisical attitude towards the old blog.
Okay, so it is July! Ummm, where has 2012 gone? I mean wasn't it February yesterday? I swear it has been a blur...a blur I say! Anyway...I am now half way through the PhD program here, which gives a sense of...what is the word again...oh yeah...terror! There is still so much to do and say and write and ask and figure out and...whew. I am exhausted already...but never fear, I am an energetic girl and will keep on keeping on.
So, today I am going to talk about schools here. Now, when I say "schools in Australia" or schools here, don't get me wrong and think I am speaking for the whole continent because in reality, I only know what goes on in my immediate vacinity. I live in the state of New South Wales, so for the most part, I think the schools all follow the same general guidelines within the state.
There are a lot of differences between what I know of schools in America (specifically Texas) and what I know of schools in Australia (specifically the greater Sydney area of NSW). First, everyone wears a uniform. All schools have school uniforms and school colors. Below is a picture of my son when we first tried on his uniform last year...does he look happy or what? He didn't like the hat, he had never worn a hat before so he wasn't really thrilled with wearing one but he adjusted quickly and now loves his hat. (The girls hat is the same as the boys.) There is a rule here that says "no hat, no play" which means that they cannot play on the playground outside unless they have a hat to protect them from the sun. Aussies are really protective about their skin and skin cancer since there is a higher rate of skin cancer here. The picture below that picture shows a picture of the school kids on an excursion to the library. You can see that the girls are in their summer uniform and that they are wearing a blue and white checkered dress with black Mary Janes.
The students wear uniforms every day. The only exception is called a Mufti Day, this is a day where you make a donation to a cause (a gold coin donation which would be a $1 or $2 coin) and you wear a certain color. Here they wear maroon or at least they have so far...not sure if that changes. They only do a mufti day once or twice a year, so it is a fun day for the kids to wear what they want.
The above uniforms are for Monday through Thursday at my son's school and then on Fridays they wear their sport uniform. The sport uniform is sweat or track pants (or shorts) with a polo type shirt with the school logo on it (See below). Sports day is the day they do their sports or PE classes. They only have these classes one day a week. My son's school is small, so they do not have a PE teacher, they contract out with different groups to come in each term and teach this class. We have had gymnastics one semester and rugby, basketball and even zumba!
I should also mention that the schools here are much smaller. My son's school is particularly small, which is unusual, he only has 70 students in his entire school for kindergarten through year 6 (6th grade). His class (along with all the other classes) has more than one grade in the class. His class is kindergarten (called kindie) and year 1(1st grade) and he has something like 19 students in his class of K-1. I believe most of the other schools have just one year to a class and the classes are probably closer to about 25 students and many schools have more than one class in a grade.
Schools here start later, but generally speaking so does the work day for most people. The work day seems to start at 9:30 am for most office type workers and school starts around 9:15am. The school day is over around 3:15. My son's school doesn't have a cafeteria, they eat outside under the trees on the school grounds and bring their lunch every day. Other schools have a little canteen area where kids can buy their lunch on certain days of the week, but not a fully functioning cafeteria like I had in school.
The schools here go on field trips and do other fun things like we did. My son has been to performances, libraries, museums, and nursing homes as part of their field trips and he once even had a double decker bus come take them on one of their trips.
Sports here seems to be done more outside the schools that in the schools. Most of the kids we know are in soccer or rugby and do that after school. Swimming is also really big here and Australia has a big campaign about kids learning how to swim. These are all programs that you pay for and go on outside of school, usually after school and on weekends, just like normal community leagues.
Primary school (elementary school) is for K-6 and high school is years 7-12. The high schools are smaller than the schools I went to and include a lot more grades. I asked some friends of mine, a brother and sister who are in different grades, if they ever saw each other at school and they said not much. One of them is in year 8 and the other is in year 10, I believe. I assume they keep the year 7 students and the year 12 students in different parts of the school because the maturity difference there is huge.
High schools here have specialities. You can go to the high school that you live inside the boundary for or you can audition for another high school if you prefer. For instance, locally we have a high school that is known as the sports school and one that is known as a performing arts school. So, if you are more sports minded, you can try out for that school if you are not in the boundaries. There is also a special technical/technology school as well. My understanding is that they try to get you to choose a path that you would like to pursue for your eventual career in the future. So, you might take some courses in high school that would steer you in that direction. There does not seem to be as much extra-curricular activities offered here. I don't know of any high school sports teams, although there are probably some but I don't think there are high school teams. I think most people participate in their community teams. I don't know of any bands in high school, marching or otherwise, or any orchestras. I do know that they have a choir program. The focus, in general, seems to be more academic and less extra-curricular.
It is also really common here for graduating students to have a gap year. Once they graduate from high school, they take a year off to travel before they go to university.
Another difference is the school year. Here, the school year starts in late January/early February (Autumn) and ends in December (Summer). Children can start school with kindergarten if they are turning 5 by July 1st, so you can be 4 years old and start kindie. While you can do this, in talking to the parents at my son's school, most of them seem to have held their kids back so that they started a year later. We did not do this with Landry, he was 4 when he started school here in kindie. School is composed of 4 terms, each with 10 weeks of school and then a 2 week break. It is kind of similar to the year round school concept. So, we will go 10 weeks on of school and then a 2 week holiday (which we are currently on now) four times a year. School gets out around December 17th and then the next year will start around February 1st. So, summer is not as long but they do get these nice 2 week breaks throughout the year. For parents, it seems that many jobs cater to this and allow parents to work from home or take time off during the breaks.
We really like my son's school and the people and students there. They were patient with us as we learned the system and got settled. We laugh now about the first 2 weeks where we all had a hard time understanding each other's accents. My little Texan boy has only tiny remnants of his Texan accent any more. When the people who are teaching you how to read and write have an Australian accent, than you very quickly start to say words the same way they do. My family in Texas always talks about his cute accent and he can say G'day mate with the best of them. Another thing that we've had to adjust to is the spelling and grammar. While much of it is similar, words like analyze are spelled analyse and favorite is spelled favourite. You add in extra u's and such. Aussies also use the word learnt as past tense of learn, so you learnt, you burnt, but I don't think you turnt? I am not real sure what the rules are on when you use -nt and when you use -ed.
Overall, we have been extremely pleased with the school here. Every child in my son's class has a laptop to work on and they do all sorts of activities with and without technology. Each term they have a theme, they just finished their bug term and have done transportation, fairly tales, dinosaurs, and animals for other terms. His school also has a garden and they go on nature hikes all around the school grounds. It is not uncommon to walk up to pick up your child and you can hear all the school up in one room singing Mary Poppins songs and having fun. Our school is a small community school, so we don't have elaborate pick up routines like many of my friends in Texas have for their schools. When it is time to pick up your kid, you drive up to the school, park and the parents get out and chat while they wait for their kids. It is a lovely atmosphere and very friendly.
Well, if you made it this far...good for you, I think you deserve a medal! Speaking of medals, it will be interesting to watch the Olympics this year. While we are true blue Americans, we will also be cheering for our Australian athletes in the green and gold.
Until next time!
Heather
